'What is going to happen to my baby?' Perth mum's shock diagnosis at 35 weeks pregnant
By Brittany Hoskins|
No matter your age or circumstances, the big C is a cruel card to be dealt.
But imagine you're a young, healthy, mother of one with another baby on the way and you're told you have breast cancer, stage 3 and it's aggressive.
That was the reality faced by 36-year-old Lara Prime in January last year.
"I put the phone down and I sat with my husband and we cried," Lara tells 9Honey. "We cried a lot."
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It was December 2021 and Lara, a children's nurse living in Perth, was running around after her toddler son while also preparing for the arrival of her second child, a girl.
"Christmas was on its wayกญ it was a busy time and I just felt absolutely shattered," she recalls. "I was so busy."
It was then Lara noticed a ?lump in her right breast.
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"It was so far in the back of my mind," she admits. "I was in the middle of pregnancy, when your boobs start to get bigger, they start to feel firmer and I thought 'oh gosh is this the start of the milk coming in?' Surely this is my body changing."
"And because I was so busy I put it off, to the back of my mind- 'I will deal with it soon' I told myself. So I put off a visit to my GP."
By January, Lara mentioned it to a midwife who told her to have it checked. Immediately.
Days later, her GP rang and she received the devastating news.
"In those initial moments, I was like 'what is going to happen to my baby?!'" she recalls.
Lara met with her oncologist who informed her they had to deliver the baby as soon as it was safe to do so.
"The thing that really got me was when my doctor told me we had three weeks max to start chemotherapy," she explains. "It was all so quick and such a shock."
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Lara was induced at 37 weeks, welcoming her beautiful baby girl, Lola, on January 23 last year.
"It still makes me quite emotional that I didn't get to breastfeed her," Lara reveals. "I had such a successful journey breastfeeding my first, out of everything, it was the one thing I felt I did really well and I hated that it was taken away from me."
Lara began treatment less than three weeks later. At the time she says it was her eldest son who she was most concerned about.
"I was really worried that he would see me and know me as sick," an emotional Lara explains. "My fear was, he's already going to have trouble adjusting to a baby arriving and now also mummy not being able to do the things she normally does."
To help, Lara's mother-in-law moved in.
"There were times, I felt in the backseat of bringing up my children."
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"I try to find a silver lining in everything," Lara says. "For me, I was able to really enjoy newborn cuddles. After every chemotherapy session, I'd come home and lay on the sofa, my baby on my chest and we would sleep. And I think most new mums, particularly with number two, don't always have time for that."
Lara ultimately underwent 16 rounds of chemo followed by a lumpectomy and radiation.
"It's a really tough thing to talk about because you never really know if you made the right decision. My doctors assured me that my risk of recurrence was the same regardless and I didn't feel like I had the mental strength for a mastectomy."
On the contrary, Lara is clearly, incredibly strong. And after months of uncertainty, sadness, and anger, she was told her cancer was gone.
"It was the 31st of August, the last day of winter and we were stepping into spring. It was also the two-year anniversary of my cousin's death and she died of the same disease, so I think there has to be some significance in that, she must have been looking out for me."
Throughout her treatment and still today, Lara worries about what would happen if the cancer spreads.
More specifically, the mother-of-two thinks of her children a decade from now and how they would cope if she were sick again.
"I would hate for my children to see me die," she says. "I imagine them at 10, an age where you vividly remember your mum being around and then suddenly she's not around. Then they go through their teen life without me, that is one of my biggest fears."
Lara says she's been working with a psychologist to combat such intrusive thoughts.
"It's feeling those feelings but then putting them in a box and putting that box away. You know it's there but you're looking at everything else."
So as the nurse and mum-of-two finally comes up for air, she's hoping to use her story to help others.
"You're never too busy to go to the GP," she urges. "Ultimately, if you don't address your health needs your family will bear the brunt of it. If you put yourself first, you're putting your family first."
She also encourages all mums to be kinder to themselves.
"Accept that it's hard no matter what - cancer or no cancer - there's no judgement, if you can't 'mum' today, take the help if it's offered," she says.
"You are good enough."
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